312. Despatch From the Embassy in Greece to the Department of State1
SUBJECT
- Greece’s Disengagement from United States Policy
In recent weeks and months the Embassy has reported to the Department a series of increasingly frequent instances wherein Greece and the United States have found themselves, primarily in the political and psychological spheres, at odds on major and minor matters of policy. For several weeks officers of the Embassy have studied these instances in their contexts and believe that they are of sufficient importance to constitute a trend which, … for lack of a better label, may be described as a “disengagement” on the part of Greece from the essentially “American” policy which she has followed since the end of the Second World War.
This recently accelerated disengagement has become manifest in three fields: (1) in Greek domestic politics and the Greek national psychology; (2) in matters affecting the Middle East; and (3) in Greece’s attitude toward Communists, Communism and the Communist Bloc of states.
It should be said at the outset that this despatch is considered to be chiefly an analysis of a trend which the Embassy considers to be of major importance to United States and Western interests in this [Page 598] part of the world; it is not intended to be a balanced report of the entire picture of Greece and her domestic and foreign policies of the moment. Furthermore, in order to identify for the Department in the clearest and briefest manner possible the factors which constitute this now recognizable trend, no attempt has been made to provide bulky documentation to substantiate the thesis. However, few items will be mentioned in this despatch which are not already to be found in the Department’s files among previous telegrams and reports submitted to Washington by the Embassy and by other United States agencies operating in Greece. Here it is our purpose to tie together all the factors of this trend primarily to identify and assess them, so that having once been recognized they may be dealt with by the Embassy and the Department.
Summary and Conclusions
Greece today remains formally and officially tied to the United States and her NATO Allies and will continue to be so tied for the foreseeable future. The United States is—and for some time to come will probably remain—the paramount foreign power in this country, as it has for the past ten years. But we are passing through a period when our influence and prestige among the Greek people and with the Greek Government are undergoing a reassessment and readjustment in a changed world situation. We can no longer be as certain as we have been in the past that we shall have Greece’s support in foreign policy matters that are critical to us. In the Middle East our policies and our actions in the past few years, with very few exceptions, have been the contrary of what Greece has considered to be her own best interests. In the Cyprus issue most of all we have failed in Greek eyes to support the Greek position, and to the Greeks there is no more important problem in this decade. Toward the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc Greece’s attitude has undergone an accelerated process of softening in the past year and a half and she less frequently asks for or accepts our advice in her dealings with the Bloc. She feels that we have ignored what she considers to be her special position in the Middle East and that we have supported more strongly her ancient enemy, Turkey, instead. The other reasons for this drift toward divergence and disengagement are manifold; some are of a minor and transitory nature, but others are deep, permanent, even normal and natural, and will be difficult to correct. Unless they are corrected, however, there is a distinct possibility that Greece will find herself ultimately in the neutral bloc or in a “non-bloc” alignment where, we have reason to fear, a growing number of Greeks today already feel themselves psychologically.
[Page 599][Here follow sections entitled: “Domestic Scene”; “Greece, the US and the Middle East”; and “Attitude Toward the Communist Bloc”.]
The General Perspective
By the nature of its subject this despatch has had to paint a rather dark picture of the current state of Greek-American relations. While it treats admittedly of only one side of the whole story it is a side which, until recent weeks, had been of very small significance and which was not an important factor in our relations with Greece. The trend toward disengagement—or, as Liberal Leader George Papandreou has phrased it, “psychological dis-association”—of Greece from American policy has recently become a fact, recognized and deplored by the Embassy as well as by responsible figures in public life in Greece. We are certain from remarks made by the Prime Minister to the Ambassador that no one deplores this drift more than Constantine Karamanlis, himself, who assures us that regardless of the prominence of the present trend Greece will remain loyal to her NATO commitments. Similar sentiments have been expressed to us privately by other high Government personages and by members of the Opposition as well. Unfortunately the latter will undoubtedly proceed as usual in the current session of Parliament to berate the Government publicly for being “American lackeys”. Politics in Greece is like that. The unfortunate thing about this whole matter is that no one in public life, with the exception of the King, has expressed any strong feelings of late that Greece must resist a drift away from her NATO ties and toward a softening attitude on Communism.
On the economic side, the Embassy feels that there do not exist the same grounds for concern as on the political. Greece’s volume of trade is 90 percent with the Free World and cannot be easily or abruptly changed. The economic ministers of the present Government are realistically aware of Greece’s continuing dependence on the West as a market for her exports and as a source for the investment capital which she needs. Also realistically (and privately) they are willing to face up to a gradual tapering off of American economic aid, knowing that less aid is in itself a measure of Greece’s growing economic prosperity, as its capacity to absorb US surpluses decreases. Their sense of duty to their country will, however, require them to protest loudly at any mention of decreased assistance.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Indeed a similar report could be compiled containing counter-indications to many of the factors treated in this despatch. Nevertheless, [Page 600] it is hoped that the Department will give careful and thoughtful study to the contents of the present despatch, which represents the serious and well considered view of the Embassy that we have reached a new stage in Greek-American relations in which many of our decade-old assumptions and rules-of-thumb are no longer valid. During the current process of Greek readjustment every move on our part which affects Greece assumes a double importance.
JK Penfield
Counselor of Embassy
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.81/11–457. Confidential.↩